RE: Chrysler to Shift Production of 300 Sedan to Canada (Update3)
Chrysler 300 Changes Plants - Car News
Magna’s Austrian plant sees products moving back to manufacturers’ U.S. factories, but there are new product prospects
BY ALISA PRIDDLE, July 2007
Magna is undergoing quite the turnover of product, mostly at the hands of Chrysler and BMW.
Chrysler has announced it is consolidating production of the Chrysler 300 at its Brampton, Ontario, Canada, plant, including roughly 27,000 right-hand-drive and diesel versions annually for international markets that currently are built, under contract, by Magna Steyr at its plant in Graz, Austria.
Chrysler is investing $500 million in Brampton to tool up to build European-market 300s in Canada starting in 2010.
The automaker is investing another $1.2 billion in Brampton in preparation for LY, which is the next-generation of the LX family of rear-drive cars: the 300, Dodge Magnum and Charger, and the Dodge Challenger (LC) that is coming in 2008.
Dropped from the lineup is the Chrysler Imperial luxury sedan that was to slot in at the top of the lineup, but the program has been cancelled because of concerns about fuel economy. Members of the Canadian Auto Workers union had voted to accept concessions to get the Imperial work in Brampton, but suspicions were raised when confirmation of the sedan kept being delayed.
Magna also is losing production of the 2008 Chrysler and Dodge minivans, as their assembly is being moved to the St. Louis, Missouri, minivan plant. The fifth-generation minivans launch in St. Louis in October.
And BMW also is pulling product from the Magna plant with plans to bring assembly of the 2010 X3 SUV in-house, to its plant in Spartanburg, South Carolina. Magna was building about 115,000 units annually of the X3, which represented about 45% of the total production in Graz.
The expectation has been that BMW would use Magna to build another new vehicle and reports out of Europe suggest it will be a Mini-based SUV to be called the Mini Colorado, with volumes in the 65,000 range.
Magna also is bidding to build a VW roadster, said to be worth about 20,000 units of production annually.
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